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For you folks that like to talk in initials I also toss you this one: FRTW
– for Fire Retardant Treated Wood (or just FRT for short)
Actually I do have a question…
I am planning on building in the Columbia gorge which has hot dry summers with strong winds. Near my lot, a patch of several hundred acres burned last summer – with the wind blowing embers and starting fires hundreds of feet away over highways, small lakes, etc.
I am trying to incorporate as many fire resistant materials as possible into my future home – HardiPlank and HardiBoard, metal roofing, etc. However, I just realized that I am planning to have a pile of lumber sticking out from my house in the form of a deck that is going to fuel one heck of a weenie roast if we get another firestorm.
I did a quick search of the web and found that Trex and related plastic impregnated wood products are flammable – they are harder to start but give off much more heat than traditional wood decking – so I am tempted to write off that alternative.
(see: Flammability of plastic lumber – Polyex
http://plastival.com/flammability.htm
– or the Trex website for much less information…)
In a search on the Internet, I could find only one product which claimed to provide fire retardant properties for lumber that could be used for railings and decks – Exterior Fire-X from
HOOVER TREATED WOOD PRODUCTS, INC. Exterior Fire Retardant Treated Lumber and Plywood
http://www.frtw.com/new-fire.htm
Has anyone had experience building a fire resistant deck? There are a number of sites listing fire retardant wood for interior use only and I get the idea from reading those that cutting the lumber to length could compromise the fire retardant qualities.
I assume the cost of this treated wood will probably cost as much as the rest of my house. Does anyone have any guestimates as to the premium one pays on this stuff over regular cedar?
I guess I could always build it out of some nice recycled aluminum stair tread… Maybe make a bunch of 2×8 concrete beams and paint them kinda orange…
Replies
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Casey: What about the fire-retardant chemicals that are used on cedar shingles? The other, maybe bigger, thing to do is minimize surface area. Wide, thick planks won't go up as fast as thin, narrow planks.
One of several of my firefighter cousins related a fire in the mountains above Santa Cruz, CA. They found house burned to the ground that weren't even on the FD or tax maps. But one house had everything right and survived unscathed. Grass and brushes cleared for 100 feet around. A masonry well, 4 feet high all around the house, 50 feet out (reflects heat away). No overhangs or soffits for heat to collect under. Flat roof, tar-and-gravel behind tall parapets(?). Stucco, no trim, no awnings. Butt ugly, but very fire-resistant. A plastic doorbell trim plate had melted. No other damage while dozens of other homes had completely minerialized al la the Oakland Hills Fire of 1991.
Could you put a brick, concrete or earth wall at the perimeter of the deck? You'd reflect radiant heat (which can ignite the house long before the flames get there) from both the deck and the house. What about an automatic sprinkler? Like the indoor ones. Wax melts out of one spray head and they all go off.
Saw a friend on the 6-o-clock news in the Oakland Hills Fire trying to spray down a roof with only 5 psi street pressure (high demand, pumping stations without power,and broken lines). Could have done more by pissing on it. It occurred to me that if you had 3/4 or 1" all the way to your hose bibs (instead of 1/2") and full-bore ball valves (instead of pressure reducing globe valves) you'd get 2-5 times more flow. Add an electric or gasoline pump to boost the pressure (even pull it from the main) and you could have 30+ gpm instead the normal 5-10 gpm (much less the 1-2 gpm everyone else got in those conditions).
Course, you'd upset the neighbors, but they could have thought to do that themselves. And they won't be neighbors for at least the 1-2 years it takes to rebuild their house.
I've got a 1-inch running (unmetered) from the 6" city main to a 1-inch mini-hydrant. Also good for watering the spruce trees. -David
*Casey , I recently saw a product on [ dont tell anyone , please ] Joann Leibler's TV show , Home Savvy I think . It was made of modular ribbed steel panels that had been dipped in PVC . The flats on the panels were about the width of a 2x6 and the recess area between the flats about 1/2'' wide through which you screwed the panels to a conventional PT deck frame . The screws were pretty much hidden . I think the panels were about 4'x4' all prefab .Dont know if their custom made or kit form but they also had stairs and railing of the same material that bolted together. I guess it would be pretty fire resistant but if your wanting the natural wood look this aint it . Chuck